Anderson disseminating gross disinformation

By Julian Karpoff | Sep 12, 2013

Daniel G. Anderson's Sept. 6 broadside contained the assertions (1) that wind, solar, and grain (ethanol) all cost over 20 times as much as fossil fuels to produce and (2) that the taxpayers lost $500 billion when Solyndra went bankrupt.

According to Wikipedia, citing the U.S. Dept. of Energy, onshore wind power costs less than coal per kwh and solar power is about 50 percent more than coal. Offshore wind power costs approximately double coal. Grain ethanol production costs per BTU are half again as much a gasoline. None of this approaches "over 20 times" and the variance is between 10 and 15 times.

This is like the difference between dime and a dollar and makes Anderson's assertion disinformation. And these figures do not include the external costs of fossil fuel, such as oil spills, pollution, and CO2, which do not appear to register on Anderson's screen.

But, wait, folks, there is more. The Solyndra loan was about $500 million, not $500 billion. That's a variance of 1,000 times - roughly the difference between a child's bathtub toy boat and an ocean liner. Here we have super disinformation.